Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories by Sharyn McCrumb

Author:Sharyn McCrumb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307757258
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-25T05:00:00+00:00

NINE LIVES TO LIVE

IT HAD SEEMED like a good idea at the time. Of course, Philip Danby had only been joking, but he had said it in a serious tone in order to humor those idiot New Age clients who actually seemed to believe in the stuff. “I want to come back as a cat,” he’d said, smiling facetiously into the candlelight at the Eskeridge dinner table. He had to hold his breath to keep from laughing as the others babbled about reincarnation. The women wanted to come back blonder and thinner, and the men wanted to be everything from Dallas Cowboys to oak trees. Oak trees? And he had to keep a straight face through it all, hoping these dodos would give the firm some business.

The things he had to put up with to humor clients. His partner, Giles Eskeridge, seemed to have no difficulties in that quarter, however. Giles often said that rich and crazy went together; therefore, architects who wanted a lucrative business had to be prepared to put up with eccentrics. They also had to put up with long hours, obstinate building contractors, and capricious zoning boards. Perhaps that was why Danby had plumped for life as a cat next time. As he had explained to his dinner companions that night, “Cats are independent. They don’t have to kowtow to anybody; they sleep sixteen hours a day; and yet they get fed and sheltered and even loved—just for being their contrary little selves. It sounds like a good deal to me.”

Julie Eskeridge tapped him playfully on the cheek. “You’d better take care to be a pretty, pedigreed kitty, Philip.” She laughed. “Because life isn’t so pleasant for an ugly old alley cat!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he told her. “In fifty years or so.”

It had been more like fifty days. The fact that Giles had wanted to come back as a shark should have tipped him off. When they found out that they’d just built a three-million-dollar building on top of a toxic landfill, the contractor was happy to keep his mouth shut about it for a mere ten grand, and Giles was perfectly prepared to bury the evidence to protect the firm from lawsuits and EPA fines.

Looking back on it, Danby realized that he should not have insisted that they report the landfill to the authorities. In particular, he should not have insisted on it at six P.M. at the building site with no one present but himself and Giles. That was literally a fatal error. Before you could say “philosophical differences,” Giles had picked up a shovel lying near the offending trench, and with one brisk swing, he had sent the matter to a higher court. As he pitched headlong into the reeking evidence, Danby’s last thought was a flicker of cold anger at the injustice of it all.

His next thought was that he was watching a black-and-white movie, while his brain seemed intent upon sorting out a flood of olfactory sensations. Furniture polish

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